DoD Cyber Crime Center Marks 24th Anniversary

The DoD Cyber Crime Center (DC3) reaches another milestone this month as it marks the 24th anniversary of its founding.

 Although, officially activated Oct. 1, 2001; DC3s origins actually date back to February 1998, when then-Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre directed the U.S. Air Force to establish a joint DoD computer forensics laboratory and a training program.

 DC3s capabilities, services and size have evolved to meet not only the changing needs of its founding DoD law enforcement and counterintelligence stakeholders, but those of the DoD and the U.S. Intelligence Community at large, to include fast-evolving mission demands in cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection, document and media exploitation, and counterterrorism.

 “Cybersecurity success, to a great extent, is dependent on the ability to rapidly identify and adapt to fast-evolving threats,” said DC3 Executive Director Jeffrey Specht. “For 24 years, DC3 has continued to grow its capabilities and its customer base. This is the result of the many DC3 employees, past and present, who share an enduring commitment to looking beyond the cyber horizon seeking ways to best support our customers.”

 The computer forensics laboratory and the training program established in 1998, evolved to what has become today’s DC3 Cyber Forensics Laboratory (CFL) and Cyber Training Academy (CTA) Line of Effort’s (LOE). Since then, additional LOEs were established, and in some cases modified to what has become their present form.

 Between 2002 and 2021, additional LOEs include the Technical Solutions Development; DoD-Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Collaborative Information Sharing Environment (DCISE); Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP), and the Operations Enablement Directorate.

 DC3s 24-year anniversary comes on the heels of another milestone reached Jan. 15, 2021, when DC3 was officially designated a Field Operating Agency (FOA) by the Secretary of the Air Force. As a FOA, DC3 transitioned from a unit aligned under the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) to a separate agency aligned under the Inspector General, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.

 Since its inception DC3 has grown from a handful of personnel, to roughly 450 military, civilian and contractor personnel. Today, CTA trains thousands of DoD personnel each year with a curriculum featuring 30 courses in several categories of specialization including cyber intelligence, incident response, and digital forensics.

 DCISE has grown from a handful of DIB partners in 2008, to more than 900 Cleared Defense Contractors (CDCs) participating in its DIB CS program in 2022. Since 2016, VDP has received more than 38,000 vulnerability reports, discovered by more than 3,150 cybersecurity researchers across the world, resulting in nearly 53 percent of vulnerabilities being validated as actionable and processed for remediation.

In April 2021, the DIB VDP Pilot was launched to promote cybersecurity within DIB companies. This free benefit to participant companies aims to reduce the DIB attack surface by discovering vulnerabilities on DIB Company networks. The pilot began with 14 voluntary participant companies and 141 assets in scope. As the one-year mark of the pilot approaches, it has grown to 40 participant companies and 347 assets. To date, the DIB-VDP Pilot has disclosed 980 vulnerabilities to DIB partner assets.

DC3 is one of seven designated Federal Cyber Centers responsive to National Security Presidential Directive 54 and as a DoD center of excellence for digital and multimedia forensics per DoD Directive.

DC3 is host to multiple embedded liaisons from key mission partners including OSI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, U.S. Army Military Intelligence, the Defense Counterintelligence & Security Agency, the National Security Agency, U.S. Cyber Command, four distinct Damage Assessment Management Offices (Office of the Secretary of Defense and the three Military Departments), a Joint Acquisition Protection & Exploitation Cell, and an Air Force Life Cycle Management Center element. 

 DC3 also maintains enduring partnerships with the FBI, the National Media Exploitation Center, and other core mission partners via embedded DC3 liaisons.

Learn more about DC3 at the official DC3 website https://www.dc3.mil/